The American Wars: a Creative Presentation
Conflicts have many forms. It may be as simple as a disagreement, a sibling rivalry in the family, a bitter feud among friends, a clan jealousy, a gang fight, or a war between nations. All conflicts and wars have roots and reasons that are sometimes elusive to understand or even know. From ancient times to present, quarrels may have started from simple or even trivial differences and disagreements. Often, these small disputes, when ignored, have even escalated to a clash between ethnic groups bent on wiping out each other entirely.
The Concept of War
In his book, (1995) cited several theories on the origin of war. Although he employed the sociological, anthropological and psychological perspective of the nature of conflicts, it gives some insight into understanding man’s behavior. One of the cited theories is the competition theory, which states that organisms compete over scarce or limited resources. In the animal kingdom, this is seen in the form of neutralism, mutual inhibition, competition, amensalism, parasitism, predation, commensalisms, proto-cooperation, and mutualism. It can be noted that in this theory, competition does not necessarily result in violence; rather, in the case of multiple participating species, some groups tend to gravitate together against another competitor.
also cited in the same book that throughout history, war had been accepted as a normal way of ending arguments, disagreements and conflicts of interest between human groups. He further states that war is a trinity composed of (1) primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, (2) play of chance and probability, and (3) its element of subordination. Group selection as an evolutionary theory of war was described by as a trait of a grouped species to unanimously decide or choose something because of its benefit or advantage to the group. This ‘good-for-the-species’ thinking is stated simply in the words ‘for the greater good’. also cited in the same book that throughout history, war had been accepted as a normal way of ending arguments, disagreements and conflicts of interest between human groups. He further states that war is a trinity composed of (1) primordial violence, hatred and enmity, (2) play of chance and probability, and (3) its element of subordination.
The 19th century anthropologists otherwise came to a different conclusion: that the class struggles and wars were created because of the appearance of surplus production and socio-economic classes. In the history of mankind, there are many recorded as well as undocumented occurrences of war. They possess individual characteristics that are unique and used in association to their own identities. Among the numerous histories of US wars, it could be assumed that the Civil War of the United States is among the most popular wars in world history due to its historical implications and worldwide effects.
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
“…but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive,
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish,
and the war came.”
Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address
4 March 1865
(2006)
Of all the considerable factors that contributed to withdrawal of Southern States from the Union and Civil War, the role of slavery and race in motivating both Southerners and Northerners usually draws the most attention and the hottest debate ( 1996). Certainly political and economic concerns played their part, yet these hinged invariably on issues and competing interests that arose from slavery and the institutions as well as the ideals built upon that institution. Many “unreconstructed Southerners” continue to insist that the sectional conflict originated over states’ rights, not slavery, although these people seldom complete the thought by specifying which “rights” they mean ( 1996). This reasoning usually entails the arguments that few white Southerners owned slaves and therefore had no interest in preserving the institution, and that most white Northerners were racist and did not initially invade Dixie for any desire to free African Americans. Although truth exists in both of these assumptions, an enormous amount of scholarship on these very issues points to the centrality of slavery and race in the coming of the war.
The American Civil War is a sectional feud between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America. It is considered as the largest historical event that extensively came into view in American public consciousness. As what was noted by (2000), over a hundred years after the first shot was fired, “its genesis is still fiercely debated and its symbols heralded and protested.” The Civil War shoved a great deal of reexamination on federalism, civil rights, and democratic-republicanism. As for people’s perception, the war translated the American regime from a federalist system based on freedom to a centralized state that circumscribed liberty in the name of public order.
The Civil War has significantly and enormously influenced the centralization and nationalization of the American federal system. It settled incessantly the national concern over whether a state could constitutionally separate from the Union. The Northern states wanted a centralized government while on the other hand; Southern states wanted a decentralized form. In depth analysis depicted that slavery is was one of the primary reasons for these contradicting concerns ( 1998).
Historically, the reasons of the war range from the complexity of political issues, competing understanding of the principles of slavery, federalism, expansionism, sectionalism, economics, modernization, and competing ideas of nationalism of the Antebellum period (1999). As recorded, a total of 970,000 casualties (about 3 percent of the total population) including 560,324 deaths.
The Origins of American Civil Wars
The origins of the American Civil War lay in a complex issues of politics, arguments over the scope of the sights of the state versus federal power, slavery, expansionism, sectionalism, economics and modernization. Between the years 1800 to 1860, dispute between the North and the South grew more intense. One of their main disagreements was about the taxes (tariff) paid on goods brought into America from other countries. Southerners felt that the tariffs were unfair; they also felt that it was aimed at them due to their wider variety of imported good compared to the Northerners. In addition, taxes were placed on many Southern goods that were transported to foreign countries, an expense that was not always applied to Northern of similar or equal value. This was allowed by a rather awkward economic structure in states and private transportation companies which has considerably affected the Southern banks as they found themselves paying higher interest loans and rates with banks in the North. The situation grew worse after several “panics” such as one in 1857 which has affected more Northern banks than Southern. Southern financers found themselves burdened with high payments in order to save Northern banks that had suffered financial losses through poor investment.
In terms of politics, the years before the civil war were characterized by such that the political power in the Federal government which was centered in Washington, D.C. was changing. Accordingly, Northern and mid-western states became more powerful as their populations increased. Because the Southern population did not grow rapidly, they in turn lost political power. As one part or section of the nation increased greater than the other, the nation was divided. This was called sectionalism. The Southerners then felt that there was a growing need for freedom form the central Federal authority in Washington. They believed that the state laws carried out more weight than Federal laws and that they should abide by the state regulations first. This issue was referred to as “State’s Rights” and became a very hot issue in congress.
Tactics, Weapons, Politics, and Results
Considering the fact that the most military leaders of the war are graduates of the United States Military Academy in West Point, they both posses the same characteristics inherent in the academy. Armies and Navies used tactics characterized by massing forces collectively in large formations to convey the greatest possible military capability to abide on an enemy. However, the only significant difference to note is the fact that they differ in purposes in fighting. Confederates are fighting for liberty and independence from a tyrannous leadership while the Union is for the preservation of the nation (1994). The American Civil War is appropriately called as “the first modern war” in the history. With this premise, it could be deemed that there is a fast development of the previous armors and artillery being used.
After the admitted defeat of the Confederate forces, the war ended. But the war had lasting aftermath to the American politics and culture as a whole (2003). It could also be deemed that it created a bigger effect in the global perspective. The conflict of interests and ideology is among the underlying principle to the politics of the war. The aims of ending slavery, movement towards economic progress, and leadership dominance complicate the internal relation of the states. The results of the war paved way to the period of reconstruction ().
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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